August 1, 2002	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 21,1423

KARLOVAC (Croatia) July 31: A Croatian court sentenced a Bosnian Muslim rebel leader who intended to run for the country’s presidency to a 20-year jail term on Wednesday for war crimes committed during the Bosnian war.

Fikret Abdic, who was due to run for a seat in Bosnia’s tripartite presidency in October polls, was found guilty of “war crimes against the civilian population and prisoners of war” committed around the northwestern Bosnian town of Bihac during the country’s 1992-95 war.

He was sentenced by a court in the central Croatian town of Karlovac.

Abdic, who holds both Croatian and Bosnian passports, was sentenced in connection with the deaths of 121 civilians and three prisoners of war and the wounding of more than 400 civilians in the Bihac region. He can appeal the sentence.—AFP